Fears that a child had been burnt alive in a garage fire caused panic for a family of five yesterday, only for the baby to later reappear unharmed with his mother.
The smoke from the Flaxmere garage blaze could be seen for kilometres as it gutted the garage. Fire crews from Napier and Hastings attended, and police and fire investigators were working at the scene yesterday to determine its cause.
A woman who identified herself only as Shannon and who lived at the property with her husband and three children, said they heard a loud bang when eating lunch at their house. They rushed outside to find the garage ablaze, but their attempts to stop it with garden hoses were useless and authorities were called.
"I was screaming on the phone, I was thinking that my nephew was in there," she said. "I'm surprised the man on the phone could understand me."
It wasn't until the fire was put out that she discovered the baby was safe. "The fire was actually out and the mother had come back [with the child]. I was still running around thinking he was dead in the shed."
